THE NEXT NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY

THE NEXT NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY (War on the Rocks)
By BENJAMIN JENSEN AND NATHAN PACKARD
NOVEMBER 30, 2020

The Biden-Harris administration is inheriting a defense strategy undermined by a mix of Jacksonian populism manifest in President Donald Trump’s political base, and COVID-19, a once-in-a-hundred-years pandemic. Certainly, no plan survives first contact, but it is increasingly apparent that the U.S. defense strategy has neither altered Chinese foreign policy nor found a way to navigate polarizing domestic political divisions, racial tensions, and the economic dislocation brought on by trade wars and disease.

...First, given the emphasis on increasing lethality and defense modernization in the plan, each military service raced to cash in on what multiple senior leaders referred to as the Trump bump in a buying spree that would leave President Dwight Eisenhower rolling in his grave....Worse still, these investments favor increasing American lethality over alliance interoperability...

... In light of present economic realities, it is noteworthy that some proponents of a “get tough” approach with China point to the latter years of the Cold War as an analogy. In the 1980s, so the story goes, President Ronald Reagan invested heavily in defense, the Soviets couldn’t keep up, and the Soviet Union crumbled. The lesson for today being that the United States should invest heavily in defense and stay the course until the Chinese system fractures. However, as Dan Coats, Trump’s former Director of National Intelligence, has made clear, this analogy is a “dangerous myth” and fails in light of the fact that the Chinese economy in 2020 is far larger and more dynamic than that of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Furthermore, falling oil prices and people power as manifest in brave dissidents likely did as much, if not more, to undermine the Soviets than the U.S. defense budget.

Sadly, while the United States remains enamored with the military instrument of power, China is inking both multilateral and unilateral trade deals around the world. On Nov. 15, 2020, China, along with 15 other nations in the Asia-Pacific region, including U.S. allies Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand, signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Washington’s refusal to participate leaves the United States outside a free trade zone that comprises a third of the world’s economy...the United States is falling behind in nonmilitary forms of persuasion. U.S. policymakers should recognize that the economic landscape is shifting, both domestically and internationally. Any strategy that does not take economic realities into account runs a higher risk of failure.


Much more here. a very thoughtful read.

https://warontherocks.com/2020/11/the-next-national-defense-strategy/